1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of IVR. In one aspect, the invention relates to systems and methods for enabling a user to more easily navigate an IVR menu.
2. Discussion of the Background
Many companies today use IVR systems to enable their customers to perform tasks and/or obtain information. The IVR systems that most companies use these days have not seen much in the way of improvement for years. When a user calls a telephone number (e.g. a customer service telephone number) associated with an IVR system, the IVR system may prompt the user to select an option from a menu of options presented to the user (e.g., press 1 for sales, press 2 for technical support, etc.). Sometimes the number of options is so great and verbose that a user can forget and fail to decide on the first pass the selection most appropriate for him/her, forcing the user to either start listening to the entire list of prompts again or making the wrong selection.
All too often these IVR prompts that are offered to customers are a source of significant aggravation and customer dissatisfaction. They also may be the cause of significant time wastage because the process of selecting an appropriate option is linear. In other words, a customer may have to listen to all the options before the customer can determine which option best matches his/her needs (unless the customer is a frequent caller and knows the appropriate option or set of options so they can enter them before the list presented is complete, e.g. barge-in capabilities).
Additionally, there are times when a user calls a telephone number where they are asked to enter some information (e.g. account number) after one or more prompts, not knowing prior to making the call that they cannot successfully accomplish the purpose of the call without having that information.
There are other problems associated with the current IVR systems as well. For example, callers typically are not presented with a zero-out option to reach a live operator—such shortcomings being the subject of Paul English's gethuman project (gethuman.com). Another problem of current IVR systems is that a caller has no way to know the number of callers ahead of them or the approximate wait time for reaching a company representative until they actually make the call.
Companies who have an IVR system have a huge challenge of maintaining and updating their IVR prompts. Hence, quite a few resort to the customary and all too often overused warning that “Please note that our menu options have recently changed.”